Autobotimal Planet
by The Starhorse
Summary: The Autobots, nature-show style. Short and silly.


This is a very short, silly story I wrote back in 2002 after watching too many nature shows. Enjoy. :)

* * *

The wild Lamborghini lies wait in his rocky alcove. He tenses, testing the air, but his quarry is yet far off, and so he settles back to linger, motionless and alert.

It is a tribute to the Lamborghini's nature that he is able to so patiently stalk his prey, and it has only been through eons of meticulous attention to his enemy's every habit that he has evolved into a machine of effortless skill and athleticism. His instincts are perfectly honed, his movements as fluid as any hunter who has spent a lifetime enjoying the fruits of a successful kill.

A noise – just a slight scrape – sounds from around the outcropping, and the wild Lamborghini coils. But it is just the wind, and he settles back to wait again in the semi-camouflage of the shade.

He is a magnificent creature. Take note of his glossy red coat and fat armor, a sure sign that he is healthy and well-fueled. He holds himself with the easy arrogance of a creature who knows that he is at the top of his food chain, and it is clear that even among the other Lamborghinis, this one considers himself to be supreme.

But look! His quarry approaches. The wild Lamborghini does not see it, nor does the quarry know of its impending doom, and for a moment, the two natural foes exist in peaceable harmony there on the stony hillside. It is a symbiosis observed for millennia, the short, peaceful prelude to the far more violent dance of the quarry's race for survival, and the hunter's blistering charge to bring the quarry to its dreadful fate.

And an inevitable fate it is, for the quarry is no match for the Lamborghini. He senses the approaching prey at last, and crouches down on his powerful pistons, perfectly still as he steadies himself to spring.

The quarry remains completely and utterly unaware. It nears, bumbling and oblivious as it shuffles naively along the rocky path. A more intelligent creature might not have chosen such an excellent ambush point as his passageway, but this particular beast has never been truly known for its sparkling wit, and it is obvious that in but a moment, it will soon be lost forever, another casualty of the brutal and unmerciful process of evolution.

Nearer, it approaches, nearer. Still it wanders as though it had not a care in the world, and if it would but choose to have the smallest bit of caution, it might have the chance to avoid its horrible and violent end.

The wild Lamborghini leans forward in its crouch, poised on the tips of its fingers, its splendid form suspended in elegant example of potential energy, just before it explodes into kinetic frenzy.

At last the quarry, still unaware, wanders across the exact spot.

And in a rush, the wild Lamborghini springs –

* * *

"BRAAK!"

Sunstreaker crashed onto his back and skidded fifty meters down the hillside, flailing at the snarling blur of red metal and kicking in a very good example of a really angry cockroach. Fingers tore at his face, blinding him, scrabbling at his throat, and making him buck and thrash in a desperate attempt to get away.

At once, his shoulder slammed into something hard, and he came to a jolting stop against a large boulder. Roaring, he finally pushed his attacker off, sprang to his feet and –

"What the --?" He blinked. "_SIDESWIPE_!?"

His brother, still on the ground, just rolled weakly onto his back, positively wilting with laughter. "I…got you!" he wheezed, and feebly slapped the hillside.

"You…" Sunstreaker seethed, "_you son of a GOAT_!"

"Got you," Sideswipe pointed a finger up at his brother.

And Sunstreaker pounced.

* * *

"So then Sideswipe got the bright idea in his head that he'd jump his brother just as he was coming around the south face of the cliff…"

Prowl watched Hound make a heroic effort at suppressing a smile, but the Autobot tracker was failing miserably. "And of course Sunstreaker retaliated," Prowl returned without a smile of his own, "presumably without regard to the fact that he was on guard duty at the time."

"Oh, go easy on 'em, Prowl," Hound tried to wave the matter away with a good-natured grin. "They're brothers. They can't help it. And besides, there was no harm done."

"That we know of," Prowl noted dryly, knowing full well that such a distraction would have been all Ravage or Lasorbeak would have needed to slip through the Autobots' outer perimeter.

Hound shrugged and offered a watery grin.

"Well," Prowl sat up, "if Sideswipe can't better manage his off-time, then maybe we might have to find a better use for all of his energy."

"Aw, Prowl…"

"Send them in here." Prowl was not hearing it. "Go get tell Ratchet to release them, no matter what wretched state they're in, and send them to me. Then go replace Sunstreaker on the southern perimeter."

"On my way," Hound responded with a rueful sigh, though not without that small, anticipatory grin that everyone always wore when they found out Prowl was handing out punishments. It was barbaric, really, how the Autobots' best form of entertainment was to watch and snicker over all the kinds of trouble their colleagues got into.

Still, a part of Prowl had to admit that he did derive a certain amount of satisfaction from seeing the looks on the miscreants' faces when he handed them their sentences, especially when said miscreants were a certain pair of Lamborghinis. "Thank you, Hound," he nodded to the tracker, and then sat back in his chair to wait.

* * *

In his lair, the wild Datsun awaits. Observe how he holds his graceful door panels in the wide, easy frame of a confident hunter. He has no fear of other predators, and neither does he even appear concerned that his prey might escape. And why should he be? For he knows himself to be far superior to his quarry's feeble efforts, and has no doubts that when his gullible victims step across the threshold of his den, they will find themselves helplessly ensnared in the threads of his fatal web…


End file.
